The Baltimore police officer who was labeled a snitch and targeted with a dead rat after becoming a key witness in a criminal case against other cops told the rest of his story to the WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team, uncovering multiple allegations of witness intimidation inside the city Police Department.

Officer Joe Crystal is now on an off-the-grid police assignment. He is a whistle-blower, a key witness against a supervisor, Sgt. Marinos Gialamas, and another officer, Officer Anthony Williams, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said.

Miller reported that Williams and Gialamas crossed the line in October 2011 in east Baltimore with the arrest of Antoine Green, a drug suspect who had run into a house to hide. The house belonged to Williams' girlfriend. When Williams showed up, Gialamas ordered the police van transporting Green to stop, Miller reported. Green was taken off the van, taken back into the house and assaulted.

Crystal was at the scene that night, and he told the I-Team he knew what had happened was wrong. He said he tried to report it, but when he called a sergeant he knew to ask for advice, he said he was told to mostly keep quiet.

"He said, 'If they ask you if you helped bring him in the house, tell the truth. But don't them anything else you heard or saw.' He said, 'And don't go to internal because they will just try to get you to rat,'" Crystal told Miller in an exclusive interview.

But Crystal didn't keep quiet. He became a witness in the investigation of Gialamas and Williams, and word apparently spread fast.

"I remember a sergeant drawing pictures of cheese on Post-Its and writing 'Crystal is cheese' and telling me that people are saying I snitched on Sgt. Gialamas," Crystal said.

Crystal kept a private journal detailing the taunting and harassment that he said came from four different supervisors and other officers.

"The detective pulls up and says, 'Hey, are you guys having a cheese party?'" Crystal said. "I didn't want any problems, and he said, 'What? I'm just asking whether you are having a cheese party. I know rats like cheese.'"

Crystal said he missed out on a new assignment to a different squad. He said a lieutenant told him why: "I have done big enough cases, good enough cases. For all intents and purposes, I should go to the squad, but it was perceived that I snitched on Sgt. Gialamas, and since I snitched on Sgt. Gialamas, I couldn't go. To be on that squad, you had to do things in the gray area, and this was going to follow me for my entire career."

Gialamas and Williams were criminally charged on Oct. 18, 2012. Crystal said the pressure mounted, and a sergeant called him at home.

"I was home with my wife, and he started screaming at me, telling me Gialamas is saying I am snitching and I am the star witness," Crystal said. "The punch line of it all: 'You better pray to God you're not the star witness.' He said it multiple times. When I hung up the phone, I said to my wife, 'I think he basically just threatened me.'"

Days later, Crystal said he was asked by a supervisor to change a date on a police voucher.

"When that happened, I was in panic mode because what I had believed was he wanted me to falsify these documents, and then he was going to be charged with falsifying a report or something like that," Crystal said.

In November 2012, Crystal went back to meet with prosecutors handling the police misconduct case. He said he told them he feared for his safety. Eight days after the meeting, Crystal found a rat on the windshield of his car.

"Its head was underneath the wiper blade, and it looked like the guts were ripped open," Crystal said. "The first thought was 'Oh (expletive).' I couldn't believe it was as bad as it was."

When asked if he had any doubt that the rat on the windshield was related to the Gialamas-Williams investigation, Crystal said no.

"I just felt it was people's way of telling me even more (that) nobody wants you here, leave," Crystal said.

Crystal testified against Gialamas and Williams. Gialamas was convicted of a misconduct charge, while Williams was convicted of an assault charge. No one was charged for the rat incident targeting Crystal.

The four supervisors who Crystal said taunted and harassed him are in their same jobs or better in the Police Department, Miller reported.